


I Dine With the Blood On My Hands

by darcysxx



Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Floyd/Harley Friendship, Physical Abuse, harley being a badass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-11 00:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7867105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcysxx/pseuds/darcysxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harley leaves her abuser. But it's okay, because even when he's not her Puddin, he's still kind of her Puddin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Dine With the Blood On My Hands

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all just putting a little disclaimer that this is not realistic!!! an abuser would never let you go so easily, im just a bit sick of fics not really condoning but justifying, i guess, harley's abuse. this is my take on what would happen :))) enjoy!!

The first time he hits her, Harley can’t quite register it.

She enters the hotel elevator bouncing with excitement, eager to show him the feral, mewling kitten she found in an alley way on her walk home.

It’s a movement in her periphery, nosing the ground for scraps and Harley’s heels are click-clacking along the cobblestone before she can stop to think it through.

Not that thinking things through is really her strong suit.

“Why, aren’t you a pretty little kitty?” She asks, scooping the tiny feline into her pale hands. She strokes the matted fur a few times before standing straight and continuing on her way home. “Puddin’s gonna love you!”

The Joker doesn’t love the poor thing, though, his lip curls tellingly as soon as it comes into his line of sight. “Harley, dear,” he sighs, stepping around his work table. “What have I told you about surprises?”

Harley furrows her brow for a moment, popping her bubble-gum as she tries to remember his words. “I dunno, Puddin,” she shrugs, “but this is a good surprise, right?”

“No,” the Joker tells her, stroking the front of his hairline exasperatedly. “How are we ever going to kill the Big Bat if we have to look after a stupid cat?”

“It’s not stupid!” Harley protests, shoving the agitated kitten close to his face in an attempt to make him see how cute it is.

The Joker pushes her arms back aggressively, not wanting the nuisance anywhere near him. “Enough, Harley-pie,” he warns. It’s a low command and she nods obediently.

She turns away ready to drop the poor creature back where she found it but one look at it's tiny, ugly face and she’s in love. Harley can’t let this mottled baby go, it’s perfect! Hideously perfect!

“But, Pudd–” Harley cries. She spins to face him only to be met with a hand to the face and an explosion of pain.

It’s an open-palmed slap that catches her right eye and she doubles over. The kitten escapes as soon as she loosens her hold on it and Harley watches it trot towards the elevator from her position. All she can feel is the harsh tingling that envelopes the right side of her face.

_Don’t panic_ , she thinks to herself, trying to stay calm, _do what Mistah J wants you to do._

When she turns her face up towards him, looking through her bleached waves, he’s expectant. He’s waiting for her to do something.

Her gut tells her that hitting him back won’t end well, so she laughs. It’s a fake giggle, but he seems to buy it as he grins back at her.

“No more surprises, my queen,” he states, returning to the blueprints strewn over their sturdy table.

Harley makes a sound of agreement and gingerly raises her hand to feel the prickling skin. She disguises the movement by brushing her hair behind her ear and smiles widely at her Puddin, ignoring the cold feeling of dread sinking deep into her stomach.

 

* * *

 

It becomes a fairly regular occurrence after that.

Harley thinks that maybe she shouldn’t have laughed the first time, maybe it made him think that she enjoyed it, but she also thinks that it wouldn’t have mattered how she reacted. Mistah J always did what he wanted.

Each time it gets a little worse, Harley admits to herself while she lies awake next to him in the early hours of the morning. Last week was a punch to the gut when she got a few details wrong in their last job, yesterday was a right hook and a sharp kick to the pelvis when she accidentally ripped his favourite pair of trousers. She can still feel the ache in her left hip, now, and the purple bruise on her face is a complete bother to cover up.

A few days later, after she asks him a few too many questions and he’s visibly shaking with the effort to contain his anger, she has an idea.

“Puddin,” she lulls, running her hand over his bicep and down his bare chest soothingly. “I’m sorry for talking too much. Is there any way to make up for it? I promise I’ll be a good girl.”

The Joker always finds it hard to resist her body, especially when she’s offering it up so freely; it’s all it takes to distract him. He looks at her ravenously before gripping her wrist and using it to twist her around.

“My, my, Harley-pie,” he rasps, biting the shell of her ear and pushing his pelvis against her ass. “How can Daddy resist?”

She’s fairly proud of herself when he pushes into her, feeling the pleasure coil deep in her belly. She climaxes as he squeezes her throat, rutting into her relentlessly.

If her pelvis injury still aches and his grip is a little too tight, Harley ignores it.

The next time she tries that little manoeuvre, though, Mistah J sees right through it. The scratches on her cheek take a week to close properly.

 

* * *

 

The first person to say anything about the poorly concealed bruises, surprisingly, is Floyd.

Harley’s driving back from a night-time trip to the mall, stolen bags and gold watches sitting comfortably in the back seat, when she passes his apartment. She can see that his bedroom light is on.

_Naughty, naughty_ , Harley thinks, _its way past bed-time for grumpy hitmen_.

The unwelcome sensation of nostalgia creeps through her bones as she remembers that night. It’s a few months ago, now, but she can still feel his comforting touch, carrying her down from that car when she was at her lowest.

She misses her suicide squad but Mistah J doesn’t like her seeing them. He’ll never tell her such a thing but Harley thinks he’s a little jealous. She’s never talked about anyone other than him with such enthusiasm and love.

He doesn’t understand, though, they saved the world that night. She still has trouble describe the feeling of doing something…good.

Before she knows it, Harley’s pulling into the nearest alley way and scaling Deadshot’s building. She peeks through his window first, making sure he’s not entertaining a lady guest or doing anything untoward. Not that that would stop her crawling into his space, though.

_Oh,_ _he would be so embarrassed!_ she thinks with glee.

But no, he’s simply sitting on his bedroom floor, surrounded by gun parts and greasy cloths. Harley tries to slide the window open but it doesn’t budge.

_Only a fellow psycho locks his tenth storey window_ , she figures, rapping on the glass pane with her knuckles.

Floyd jumps slightly and turns around with a look of such vexation that Harley almost laughs. He smiles afterwards, though, when he unhooks the latches and she slides through the small gap gracefully.

“Ms Quinn,” he greets, walking back over to his gun collection. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Harley flashes her signature man-eating grin and sits on the edge of Floyd’s unmade bed. “Hey, Baby!” she says animatedly, “I was just passing through the neighbourhood, thought I’d visit my favourite hitman.”

Floyd huffs a laugh, “You didn’t bring cops raining down on both our asses, did you?”

“Maybe,” Harley sing-songs, “but I think with my smarts and your good looks, we’d have a chance of making it out alive.”

They chit-chat for a little while, talking about menial things before Harley gets bored. As much as she loves the man standing in front of her, the truest of her friends, maybe they get along better when they’re saving the world together.

_Ain’t nothing wrong with that,_ she reminds herself. Neither of them were meant for a life of catch-ups and small talk.

After their goodbyes, as Harley’s climbing back out the window, Floyd clears his throat. She pauses, turning towards him expectantly.

“Where’d that come from?” he asks, gesturing to a particularly blue-green bruise at the very top of her thigh. Her sparkling, wine coloured dress has ridden up enough to expose it. 

_Shit_.

Harley thought it wouldn’t matter if she didn’t cover it up when she was getting ready earlier. It’s in such an odd place that surely no movement would expose it. Of course, she’s wrong.

“Oh that,” she says, waving airily. “Just walked into a bench corner, is all. _Silly me_.”

“Harley…”

“Doesn’t even hurt anymore!” she lies, trying not to wince as she pokes it.

Floyd is just looking at her, expression so full of pity that she wants to slap it off his stupid face.

“We’re friends, Dollface,” he says sincerely. Harley sighs. She knows that if she really wanted to, she could just jump out the window and never look back, but Floyd is the kindest psycho she’s ever met. She can’t ignore the relief she feels that somebody finally cares enough to ask.

“I make mistakes, Flo, and Mistah J don’t like it when things go wrong.”

Harley almost regrets telling him the truth but reconsiders. He’s looking at her, again, with that same expression. It’s so dreadful that she averts her eyes. _It means he cares_ , she has to remind herself, _he’s not looking down on you_.

“How long?” Floyd asks, suddenly there’s anger present on his smooth features.

“’Bout a month,”

“Oh, Harley,” he whispers. “Why don’t you stay here?”

She considers it for a fraction of a second before shaking her head. “Thanks, but I don’t need help. I haven’t told him that I don’t like it yet, he’s gonna stop when I do that.”

Floyd sighs, running a hand over his shaved head. “He knows you don’t like it, Gorgeous. He doesn’t care.”

“What? That’s stu –”

“Harley, listen to me. If you don’t get out of there, he will kill you.” Floyd tells her. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him so serious.

“Don’t be silly,” she says with a smile. It’s insincere but he doesn't seem to notice. “Mistah J loves me, he would _never_ kill me.”

“My father used to tell my mother he loved her,” Floyd says and Harley stills. “Then he strangled her within an inch of her life.”

He’s not looking at her, choosing to stare at the ground instead and she feels impossibly uncomfortable in the sudden quiet.

“Why did he stop?” Harley asks.

Floyd swallows. “I killed him.”

The coldest sensation slices through her and before she can register it, Harley’s descending the side of the brownstone building. As she drives twice the speed limit down the empty city streets, Floyd’s words repeat themselves in her head.

She doesn’t think she’s ever been so shaken.

When she gets home, her Puddin greets her with a proud, possessive kiss and a request to see her haul. Harley tip-toes around him, watching his mannerisms closer than she ever has. She thinks that if he tries to hit her tonight she might just run.

Luckily, if he notices her uncharacteristic quietness, he doesn’t say anything and they fall into bed smiling.

Harley can’t sleep, though. She can’t stop thinking about Puddin’s nearness and how far she wants to be from him. Floyd’s voice sounds in her head again and again and again until all she hears is white noise.

With cautious, quiet movements, Harley gets out of bed and pads into the living room.  After finding a piece of paper, she sits down at Mistah J’s work bench. She slowly taps the pen against her temple.

_Do it!_ She urges herself, _be brave._

Harley touches the pen to the nondescript paper a few times before she starts jotting down her thoughts. It takes five tries before she gets it right.

_My dearest Puddin,_ the final copy reads, _I’m leaving you. I love you more than my own life but we can’t be together. You keep abusing me and I think one day if I do something stupid enough, you’re going to kill me. So that’s why I’m saying goodbye. I wish you all the best in life. Don’t look for me. Bye forever, your Harley Quinn_ _♥_

She sits there for a while and doodles hearts over the spots her tears hit.

It feels so wrong to be saying goodbye like this; Harley had truly believed that they’d be together for the rest of their lives. She loves Mistah J so much sometimes it feels like she can’t breathe.  

She had told him, so long ago, that she would die for him and she hadn’t been lying. If he asked her to die today she would lay down her life in an instant, but she’s always thought that it entailed a glorious, memorable death.

The path they’re on, now, was furthest thing from glory she could imagine. He would’ve taken everything out of her until she wasted away.  

She would die for him, her beloved Puddin, but she wouldn’t die _because_ of him.

He’s still asleep when she returns to their bedroom and Harley gets to work packing most of her belongings. When she finishes, she stands at the foot of the bed and takes a good look at him, heart thundering in her chest.

Even now, when she’s saying goodbye, she still feels that magnetic pull. His bare, tattooed chest beckons to her, looking like the perfect place to rest her weary head.

_Maybe it’s not too late to forget about all of this_ , she reasons. She can just burn the note and pretend it never existed. He’ll never know.

Harley shakes her head and sighs, maybe yesterday she could’ve convinced herself to stay but Floyd’s story has shown her something she can’t un-see. If she doesn’t leave tonight, she never will and she’ll die because of it.

“Goodbye, Puddin,” she whispers. The tears are flowing freely now.

She’s tempted to lean over and kiss him one last time, but it could wake him. Instead, Harley delicately places the note on her pillow and grabs her bags.

She doesn’t look back when she passes under the doorway.

 

* * *

 

Floyd’s window is unlocked when she pulls herself up the side of his building. One part of her thinks he just forgot to lock it after she made a hasty exit earlier in the night, the other part thinks that he knew she was coming back.

As the sun lights up in the morning sky with its golden hues, Harley hauls her bags into his room and goes straight to the kitchen. When Floyd finally wakes up to the smell of eggs and bacon, he appears on the other side of the bench, looking unsurprised.

“I made you breakfast!” Harley announces as he sits down. She’s pretty proud of herself for not burning anything.

The pair stare at each other for a moment, silently communicating, before Floyd takes a bite.

“Delicious,” he lies. Under any other circumstance he would’ve told her that the eggs were horrible but she looks just as fragile as she did on top of that car. “Thanks, Dollface.”

 

* * *

 

When the Joker wakes the next morning, he reaches out blindly for his Harley-pie. All he finds are cold sheets.

_What a disappointment,_ he thinks. He’s in the mood for some lazy morning fun. He starts to drift back off to sleep; he’d been having a good dream about a dead Bats and Harley soaked in blood, after all, but his hand makes contact with the crinkled paper lying on the pillow next to him.

He’s upright in an instant, clutching the note with white knuckles.

_Bye forever, your Harley Quinn_ _♥_

The note is in shreds before he knows it, and he’s laughing. That flat, sarcastic laugh echoes unnervingly throughout the apartment.

_Stupid girl_.

She’ll be back.

The Joker will give her a few days to realise she can’t live without him, then she’ll be back.

 

* * *

 

“Floyd, Baby, look!” Harley cries out, clapping her hands in front of her with glee.

She waits until the hitman crosses the room to join her on his bed. His towel is slung around his neck, straight after his morning workout. He peers at the laptop screen and reads the words aloud.

“What exactly am I looking at here?”

Harley rolls her eyes. “ _Warehouse apartment for sale_. What do you think?” she asks rhetorically, “It’s gonna be my new home!”

Floyd furrows his brow as he inspects the real estate ad again. It looks inviting, very Harley-esque, but he isn’t sure why she’s even considering it. “I thought I said you could stay here as long as you wanted.”

“I know, Love,” Harley replies, patting his bicep in a way of thanks. “But if I stay here, Mistah J will find me, and he will kill you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh huh,” she says without hesitation, voice dropping an octave, “ _God_ help the poor bastard that takes Puddin’s favourite toy away.”

Floyd feels the chill of her words but hides it well. “It’s your choice, Princess,” he tells her with a warm smile, “but I’m pretty sure I could take him.”

Harley grins back, grateful to have a friend like Floyd Lawton.

She knows he loves her in his own, special way. It’s a pure, selfless kind of love that warms her right down to her toes but it also makes her unbearably sad. If her Puddin loved her like Floyd did, she wouldn’t be here.

However Mistah J loves or doesn’t love her, it’s irrelevant, she doesn’t want him dead and she knows Deadshot won’t hesitate to deliver the final blow.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Mr Lawton,” Harley says, imitating a Southern Belle. “But I best be going now.”

Floyd nods, playing along. “Of course, Miss.”

It takes fifteen minutes at most to collect all of her stuff and when they’re finished, Harley kisses Floyd on the cheek with an exaggerated _Mwah!_

She’s speeding down the highway soon after.

The real estate agent, if he can even be called that, is a lecherous, greasy old man and it’s exactly what Harley is hoping for. She turns her charm factor up to eleven, reaches up enough to expose some skin when she’s inspecting some shelves, and _wouldya look at that!_ The warehouse is hers.

Once the agent finally leaves she takes a detailed look around, jotting problems and ideas down on her pink dollar-store notepad. Overall, the place isn’t so bad.

Harley remembers the businessman mentioning something about an old timber storeroom, which explains the faint smell of sawdust. It’s relatively small, she supposes, given what it was used for. She figures that it must’ve been converted into a living space not long ago when she sees the fairly modern kitchen and bathroom on opposing sides.

Harley notes that the corrugated iron walls need a paint job and reminds herself to go to a hardware store later. There’s steel beams running along the roof in a grid formation and she’s sure she can work out how to section off the rooms somehow.

Before long, she has a general plan for the place and is practically buzzing with excitement.

She thinks that Puddin would be so proud of her creativeness if he were here, but quickly pushes it from her mind. This wasn’t about Mistah J. This was about her being an independent, resourceful lady.

When she’s on her way home from the nearest Home Depot, she stops by a familiar alley, almost immediately spotting the same downtrodden kitten hunting for scraps.

“Come here, you gorgeous kitty cat,” she beckons, watching the little creature cautiously make its way over to her. “I’m gonna call you JJ! You’re gonna be my replacement Puddin. How do you like that, huh?”

It meows in response, attempting to scratch her wrists as she gathers it into her arms.

“Perfect!” she says. “You’re already playing the part.”

 

* * *

 

The day she leaves is a long one for the Joker.

He waits first, thinking she might give up after a few hours, but the doorbell doesn’t ring. He tries to distract himself after that, drawing up new plans and meticulously reviewing current ones.

It doesn’t really work, though. His other half is at the fore-front of his mind all day.

The Joker considers going to the club at night. There are surely many up and comers waiting to see him, but he rejects the idea as soon as he pictures watching the gilded cage without his Harley inside.

This is torturous. Whatever reaction she wanted when she left the note on her pillow earlier this morning, she’s getting something. If only she came home now so he could congratulate her. Maybe if she’s sorry enough he’ll just forget about the whole thing.

He has a feeling, though, deep in his gut, that she isn’t coming home tonight.

As much as he hates to admit it, the Joker struggles in her absence.

Life without Harley is just so unbearably boring. When she’s here, constantly around him like a love-struck fool, he forgets what it was like when she was in prison. He’s remembering now, though, and it’s agonizing.

He’s always been pretty fucking crazy, but those few months almost drove him over the edge. It felt like a heart-shaped hole had been unceremoniously carved out of his chest.

For the first few weeks the Joker carried on as normal, trying to convince himself that he could live without her, loathing the idea of being dependent on anybody. His patience wore thin, though, anger festering until he killed anyone who mentioned her name.

He started the search after a month, assigning his most competent men to the job.

It took twice that to finally find her. 

The week before they found her, all he did was spent time on her tribute. He stayed holed in up their home, laying out knife by knife by gun by grenade. He even bought her baby clothes and roses, arranging them like symbolic promises he never wanted to make.

It would make her happy, though, and he was beginning to forget what her wolfish grin looked like.

The night he finished his creation, was the night they found her at Belle Reve. The same night he reclined amongst the masterpiece, feeling the hole beginning to stitch itself together.

Now, the Joker feels his skin being slowly coming apart again as he gathers all of his weapons. He puts them down one by one, trying to remember the exact configuration that rewarded him with so much luck last time.

He would give Harley three days to come back, he decides while straightening the tip of his favourite bowie knife.

Three days was generous enough, then he would find her.

 

* * *

  

Within three days, Harley’s almost finished her home make-over.

There are red cotton curtains sectioning off the bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen. They were probably the hardest thing to organise but Floyd put in a helping hand after she promised to visit Zoe next week. When Harley found out that she was the sweet-thing’s favourite squad member, she couldn’t say yes fast enough.

She found a few decrepit couches and closets at the nearest tip. Convincing one of the workers to drive them over in his trailer had been the easiest job yet.

Mistah J never liked when she left her clothes littered around their apartment so Harley wrenches the doors off of her new wardrobe and puts them on full display. Her plethora of weapons now sit in a leather bound chest at the foot of her bed and the nearness of them comforts her more than she can convey.

The living room is decorated with two dusty, brown sofas and a solid, wooden coffee table. She’s going to put a TV in there at some point but it can probably wait. The kitchen is missing a few utensils as well but the state of the art espresso machine she stole two days ago makes up for it.

Miniature coffee cups litter the house already.

She finally decides on a colour for the walls after a long, indecisive hour in the hardware store’s paint section. That’s where she is now, painting the walls a soft, pastel pink with smooth strokes.

Harley thinks she looks awfully cute in the red overalls hanging over her pale shoulders. She even has a red bandana to keep her hair draped over her back; it hangs past her waist invitingly.

If Puddin could see her now he’d probably ravish her in amongst the paint.

Harley sighs, pausing mid-stroke. She still can’t stop thinking about him. It’s beyond frustrating; makes her fingers itch to just _hit_ something. She’s tempted to steal a couple of mannequins or a punching bag so she has something she can let out her anger on.

She came here to get away from Mistah J but she just…. _misses_ him.

She’s been tempted to go back so many times, especially at night, in her cold, empty bed. The fact that he hasn’t come looking for her is making her feel uncomfortably conflicted; she doesn’t want to see him but she’s worries that he doesn’t miss her at all.

It’s not like she’s been making an effort to be untraceable, anyway, he can easily locate her if he really wants to.

_He clearly doesn’t want to then_ , Harley firmly reminds herself. There’s no point in pining over someone that doesn’t want her back.

She skips over to her stereo, turning the music up loud enough to drown out her thoughts, and continues her _Harley Home Makeover_.

Before long, she’s finished the living room wall, and when she checks her three watches it’s late enough to finish for the day. Harley strips off her labourer’s outfit once she gets to her room, not worrying about the specs of pink paint splattered over her exposed skin as she changes into her pyjamas.

JJ is curled up at the end of her bed, proving himself to be quite the placid thing after a good feed.

Once Harley brushes her pearly whites and switches off the bedside lamp, she climbs under the covers, getting ready for another night of little sleep. Her brain doesn’t seem turn off at night when her life is lacking the excitement of crime and her ever-entertaining Joker.

Just as she’s drifting off to sleep, she hears the tell-tale sound of a car pulling up and quick as lightening she has the lamp on. She waits at the foot of the bed, favourite baseball bat firmly in her grasp.

That dreaded laugh echoes throughout the iron building before the bedroom curtain is pulled back and then he’s just _there_ , her Puddin. Her heart is thundering.

“My, my, Harley-pie,” he says, looking around the decorated room with vague interest. “I like the new place.”

Harley keeps her bat up behind her head, ready to strike at any moment. Inwardly, she crumbles. He looks so fucking good, standing here in front of her, purple crocodile-skin coat hanging over his tattooed chest.

In their few days apart, she’s forgotten how much charisma and complexity just _emanated_ from him, curling around her heart like unforgiving tendrils. It takes all Harley has not to cross the room and jump into his arms.

_Remember how much his blows hurt_ , she orders herself, letting the phantom pain strengthen her resolve.

“Oh, really?” she asks, watching the way he tenses even further at her tone. “Surprised how well I’m doing on my own?”

Not wanting to admit just how out of control he feels in this situation, the Joker bristles internally and takes an instinctive step toward her. Harley corrects her stance accordingly, morphing from the defensive position she was in to something more aggressive.

“You lay one hand on me, Mistah J,” she tells him, adjusting the grip on her bat for emphasis. “And I swear to god, I will kill you.”

The Joker laughs again but makes no further advance on her. “Kill me?” he questions with an exaggerated smile, “you couldn’t.”

Harley lowers her bat, expression desperate. “I really don’t want to, Pud. Please, don’t make me.”

The Joker softens, uncomfortably affected by her words. She looks so… _sad_.

“Just come home, Harley-girl,” he pleads, momentarily vulnerable.

It’s the closest thing to begging she’s ever heard from him and she wants to say yes so much her fingernails break the skin of her palms.

She can’t, though.

Harley takes her eyes off him for a moment and looks at her new home. Every single aspect of it has been her choice. It’s her creation and it’s beautiful.

She’s sick of being controlled.

“I’m sorry, Mistah J,” she tells him, regret evident in her tone, “but I can’t do that.”

The Joker is suddenly angry again, rolling his neck grotesquely, teeth bared. “Harley,” he warns, voice low.

As she stares back, resolute, he moves towards her thoughtlessly. She raises her bat in response, more than ready to whack him if he tries anything.

“You need to leave, Puddin. _Now!_ ”

The Joker raises his arm in an attempt to calm her down and get her to think about what she’s doing. This is spiralling out of control so fast his head’s spinning.

He waited three torturous days, truly believing she’d come waltzing through the door at any moment but she’s here, building a new life without him. It scares him more than he wants to admit.

He’s always counted on her doing whatever he asks, without question.

_Time for a different approach_ , he thinks.

“Puddin is asking you very nicely to reconsider, Baby,” he patronizes, voice sickly sweet. “This is the point of no return.”

Harley scoffs, “No.”

The Joker curls his lip, unused to defiance. His fists are clenched tightly by his sides and he’s unable to stop himself twitching with anger.

One breath, in, out – and he’s calm again.

“If you come home now, I won’t hit you ever again.” the Joker tells her.

He’s not entirely sure if it’s a lie.

Harley frowns. “ _Once an abuser, always an abuser!_ ” she recites in her New Jersey lilt. “I read that in a book my friend gave me, and I trust him more than you!”

“Friend?” the Joker asks lowly, feeling familiar jealousy sparking in his throat. He runs his hand along the tracheal muscles in an attempt to sooth the burn.

Harley points her bat towards him, poking his chest with the dull end. “ _Nuh uh!_ This ain’t about anyone but you and me.” she chides, “I thought I told you to leave.”

The Joker slaps her bat off his chest, sensing that he’s lost the battle. “Enough, Harley! I’m sick of this game.”

The energy shifts and suddenly she’s tilting her head at him like a mother looks at her child when they _just don’t get it_.

“Oh, _Puddin_ ,” she replies quietly, “This ain’t a game.”

The Joker can only stare at her, trying to decipher the sympathy in her eyes.

She really is serious.

For a moment he considers taking her on, maybe knocking her out so he can forcibly bring her back home, but an unwilling Harley is no fun. It looks like she won this round, fair and square.

“This isn’t over, Doll,” he tells her, walking back the way he came.

Inadequacy tingles at the tips of his fingers when he watches her frown. As he’s driving home, relentless thoughts hit him from all sides. This situation is entirely new to him.

Sure, he can try manipulating her, but it’s only possible when she wants to manipulated. Not consciously, but somewhere deep, _deep_ inside her had been begging for it from the moment they met.

Now, she’ll see right through it. Never has he felt so utterly helpless.

It only serves to strengthen his resolve, though.

Seeing her with more fire in her eyes than ever, daring him to bite, is sparking up his long dead heart.

The Joker wants his Harley back, and if that means staying away from her until the time is right, so be it. He’s the farthest thing from a patient man but the stakes are too high to jump the gun here.

He will wait if he needs to; he’ll do anything it takes.  

 

* * *

 

Harley doesn’t sleep a wink that night. Their conversation replays itself over and over in her mind until she gets so fed up that she’s out the door, distracting herself with a night out on the town.

She’s grateful that she was so privy to the Joker’s plans, being his loyal arm candy and all. She knows exactly which clubs are and aren’t littered with his stationed henchmen.

Harley’s wearing her flashiest dress. It’s a sparkling, silver scrap of material that ends at the very tops of her thighs and she’s not surprised by the stares she receives when she walks into the venue.

The club is pure class, purple velvet lines the walls and the drinks are served with crystal glasses. Harley is approached within two seconds of arriving at the bar. It’s a faceless suit offering to buy her a drink and she accepts the offer with a smile.

She has a feeling she won’t have to pay for anything the whole night.

She dances for a little while, enjoying the feeling of all eyes on her. She even gets a little handsy with the other ladies there, but stops after a minute. It just isn’t the same when she can’t look to the side and see Mistah J sitting in his booth, watching her.

God, it used to get her so hot and heavy, _feeling_ his eyes on her whenever she was in that cage.

How could he just throw something like that away?

Disillusioned with the dancing scene, Harley saunters up to the bar, waiting for another man to buy her a drink.

She spots a cute twenty-something at the end of the bench. He’s trying to be subtle about looking her over and it puts a smile on her face. She considers joining him, flirting a little, maybe giving him a kiss, maybe even taking him back home.

It does nothing though, thinking about fucking this handsome stranger. No spark in her belly, no anticipation, just _nothing_. No one other than Puddin can make her feel so electric, so _alive_ , simply by existing.

Harley sighs, sipping her Mojito miserably. Going out isn’t fun without her other half.

She finishes her drink and slips out of the venue, choosing to spend the rest of her night window shopping. If she breaks a few too many shop-front displays and if Mistah J notices her reckless behaviour, so be it.

She isn’t above getting his attention, somehow. She isn’t above anything, really.

 

* * *

  

Harley receives a bouquet of deep red roses a day later.

_I like the new jacket_ , the note reads.

She presumes it’s referring to one of her stolen items from the previous night. It isn’t signed but Harley would have to be fucking stupid to assume it’s from anyone other than her Puddin.

She thinks it’s his way of telling her that he’s going to be watching from now on. The rush of satisfaction hits her hard, sparking the nerves at the base of her spine and pulling the breath from her chest.

She knows she should feel a little ashamed at that reaction but she also knows herself. As firm as she is that she’s never going back to Mistah J, Harley will be destroyed if he ever loses interest.

She doesn’t own a vase yet so she divides the roses into smaller bunches and puts them in different cups around the house. It’s strangely comforting, Harley thinks, every time she walks into a different room over the next few days she’s met with a physical token of her Puddin.

At the end of the week, however, she finds herself quite bored. The home-makeover is finished, to her standard at least, and going out is just too dull.

Harley decides she needs to find a hobby.

She feeds JJ while considering her options, over-filling the bowl because she just can’t resist spoiling him.

When Puddin had fried her brain, transforming her from the uninteresting Harleen Quinzel she was to the enigmatic Harley Quinn she is today, she lost a great deal of her intelligence. Enough remains, however, that he used to entrust her with the technical side of jobs. Things like casing a joint, knowing when the perfect time to strike was, which guard was going to be where, and –

_That’s it!_ she thinks to herself, excitedly pressing the button for another espresso, _running the show could be my new hobby!_

She twirls around the kitchen for a moment, proud of herself for coming up with such a good idea, before darting off to her bedroom.

Soon enough, Harley’s sitting on her bed, surrounded by notes and half-formed plans.

She thinks she might hit a jewellery store first. Mistah J has always loved the sight of gold on her pale skin, after all.

 

* * *

 

After bearing witness to a successful heist and impressive spoils, the Joker sends Harley his second gift.

To be quite honest with himself, he’s surprised at what she accomplished last night, even his first solo job hadn’t gotten that well.

When he payed her a visit last week, he had decided not to place cameras inside her home, knowing she would discover them in an instant, but she was yet to notice the few placed on the outskirts of the warehouse.

Harley had been planning something. The Joker knew that from the camera above her front door, recording her short, frequent trips and the equipment she was bringing inside.

When she left last night, drabbed in her formfitting jester suit, baseball bat in hand, he knew it was finally time.

He sits in front of various monitors, clad in his favourite pair of trousers, hands restless with the itch to see his Harley in action. Tracking her car through CCTV footage was easy enough, then she’s pulling into an alley behind the jewellery store he presumes she’s going to rob.

_God_ , he can’t ignore the lust that curls in his stomach when he sees her flipping and tumbling around the control room, turning the alarms off one by one.

She is magnificent. The Joker should’ve let her run her own jobs since the start.

Harley’s acrobatics continue until she comes across the first display box, and with an almighty swing of her bat, the glass shatters. It’s hard to make out what she is picking up and shoving into her patterned velvet backpack but he _can_ see the string of pearls she clasps around her pretty neck.

They suit her perfectly. If he had been with her, he too would’ve let her keep them.

When she’s finished collecting what she wants, Harley blows a kiss to the camera and twirls out of the store. The Joker grins, unsure whether that kiss was meant for his eyes but undeniably proud of her, nonetheless.

He has the urge to drive to her humble abode and surprise her, hoping that in her victory high she’ll let him back in. He denies himself, though. He’s in a good mood tonight and her refusing him will destroy it.

No, the Joker is perfectly satisfied with leaving her another gift. He wants to congratulate her on her accomplishment but it also serves to keep him at the forefront of her mind. If he ever loses her attention, he isn’t sure what he’ll do.

He wraps up his present; a brand new gun holster that he embroidered with Joker-esque designs, in thin red paper and writes a short note.

_For your next one_ , the message reads.

The scrawl is messy due to his shaking hand. His work is usually much more precise but this situation is a little closer to his heart than normal.

He orders Frost to drop the gift at Harley’s front door then reclines in his chair, hands behind his head. Soon enough, the gift is delivered to the _welcome_ doormat and the doorbell has been rung.

When she opens the door, Harley’s hair is out, splaying over her back and hanging in front of her face. The Joker can’t see her expression as she takes the parcel inside.

It doesn’t matter to him, though, because he can see the holster wrapped around her middle when she’s completing the next job.

He almost destroys his plush chair in glee, leather arm-rests straining underneath his punishing grip. His laugh is joyous that night, louder than his henchmen have heard it since Harley left.

 

* * *

 

It continues like this for the next couple of months. Harley pulls off a job, the Joker puts a congratulatory present on her door step for when she gets back.

He finds himself neglecting his duties, wanting to watch her more than he wants to run the business so he has to hire a team solely for monitoring her movements. If she leaves the house, he’s told right away.

If she has any objections to his new habit, Harley doesn’t show it. She encourages it, in fact, wearing and using his gifts like badges of honour every chance she can get.

It’s a bizarre kind of foreplay, but it unquestionably works. Whenever she appears on camera, clad in the dress he gave her last week, or twirling the hockey stick he gifted the week before, the Joker is so fucking turned on he can hardly see straight.

He’s in the middle of a drawing up a new plan when there’s a sharp knock on his office door.

“What?” he asks, exasperated. Nothing irks him more than being disrupted in the midst of a good idea.

The door creaks open and, unsurprisingly, its Frost. The majority of his henchmen are too scared to disturb the Joker while he’s working, he thinks it’s to do with the fact that he kills most of them for even trying.

Frost knows how the game works, though. Keep it short and sweet. Don’t speak too loud. Only knock if it’s urgent.

“It’s Harley,” he begins and the Joker visibly panics, remembering rule three. “Woah, woah, _woah_ , she’s not hurt, don’t worry.” 

“Why the fuck are you in here, then?” he asks snappily, letting irritation sweep over him instead of psycho-analysing that very, _very_ uncharacteristic reaction.

Frost, smart man he is, gets straight to the point. “The guys upstairs said they would’ve paged you because she seems to be doing another job but she’s, uh, with someone.”

“With someone?”

“Yeah,” Frost answers, suddenly a little nervous. “She’s with a guy.”

The Joker sees red, sweeping everything off his work bench with an unbridled roar.

He knew this day was coming, eventually, she was going to get bored off their little game and find someone else to keep her attention. He thought he’d be a little angry but the white hot rage scorching his veins was laughably unanticipated,

Frost is nowhere to be seen, and the Joker is glad. As much as he has a soft spot for the guy, the urge to put a bullet in someone’s brain is all-consuming.

He picks the first gun he sees up off the floor and thunders upstairs. The monitor room is empty, disappointingly enough. The itch to kill someone is becoming more and more unbearable.

It’s all but forgotten, however, when he sees the various TV screens and suddenly he’s focused.

The one with the view of Harley’s front step is empty but it takes the Joker hardly any time to rewind the footage. He doesn’t have to go back too far until she appears, and sure enough, there’s a man with her.

It’s Deadshot.

The Joker calms a little, knowing that she considers him a friend more than anything. It’s a foreign concept to him but Harley’s always been the saner of the two.

The paranoia and jealousy doesn’t leave him completely, however. As sure as he is that they weren’t fucking a few months ago, who knows what could’ve happened in he and Harley’s time apart. The Joker would have to be thick if he didn’t think Deadshot is the ‘ _friend’_ that leant Harley that book on abuse, in fact, he probably encouraged her to leave him.

The Joker absentmindedly places his gun on the nearest table then rests his forearms on the back of his favourite chair, watching their interactions closely as they talk outside. Their body language is annoyingly ambiguous. He can’t tell if they’re flirting or just very comfortable with each other. There’s a playful elbow in the ribs here, an exaggerated laugh there.

It’s perturbing. 

The Joker would never let anyone get that relaxed with Harley when they were together. It stings to watch, if he’s being totally honest with himself. He’s here alone, spying on her like freak, while she’s flirting with another man.

He forces the alien, wounded energy to manifest itself into anger.

_Much better!_ the Joker thinks to himself, happily kicking one of the monitors off its fixture.

Harley catches his attention again, though, leaning in to give Deadshot a kiss on the cheek. The Joker is paralysed, unable to draw his eyes away from the hand she’s placed underneath his elbow and the genuinely loved up smile she’s wearing.

He’s only ever seen her look at him like that.

“ _Fuck!_ ” the Joker shouts, trembling with an unforgiving fury that’s branding the inside of his veins like a fire poker.

So they were fucking.

He’s breathing is laboured, coming out in harsh pants as he watches them exchange a few more pleasantries and suddenly Deadshot disappears out of frame.

Harley lets out a dreamy sigh as the Joker strongly considers marching downstairs and killing the first five people he sees. He snatches his gun off the table top and checks the magazine, ready to wreak havoc on the lower floor when a movement on the screen catches his attention.

_Oh boy!_

Harley’s waving at him, looking straight into the lens.

The Joker can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out of him. He thought she hadn’t noticed the camera but she must’ve known this whole fucking time.

His heart stutters as she blows him a kiss and he’s out the door, burning anger forgotten. If she wants to play he’ll gladly give her his undivided attention.

_God_ , she would’ve known exactly what reaction that little display would’ve gotten. Little minx.

The Joker can’t push down the anticipation deep in his gut any further and he’s practically buzzing when he arrives at her place. She’s not there now but it doesn’t take him long to search through her decorated papers and see which store she’s about to rob.

It’s another jewellery store, much more high-end than the first and, frankly, the Joker thinks it’s ambitious. He knows the security detail is little gratuitous but it does help explain Deadshot’s presence.

His purple Lamborghini weaves through the city traffic, streets almost empty as this time of night. The Joker pulls up in front of the store sloppily, tempted to drive straight through the entrance but resists the urge, not wanting the cops to spoil he and Harley’s reunion. 

The display windows look untouched but when the Joker peers through a gap in the gaudy wallpaper he can see that the inside of the shop is a complete mess. Shattered glass litters the floor, he can hear it crunch beneath Harley’s heels.

He circles around to the back entrance, not wanting to bring attention to himself just yet. Once he’s inside he stealthily approaches them, crouching behind the nearest cash desk.

“You got all you need, Dollface?” Lawton asks Harley, unaware of the Joker’s presence.

_Dollface?_ He repeats to himself _,_ fingers twitching against his gun.

“Almost, Baby. Which looks better on me, the hoops or the pearls?”

The Joker grimaces, unused to her using pet names with anyone but him.

“Everything looks good on you, Princess. Take ‘em both and let’s go.”

Having had more than enough of the flirting, he stands up from his hiding spot. Harley and Deadshot have their pistols aimed at the movement in an instant. 

“I think I’d go with the hoops, my dear,” the Joker says, signature grin wide. “Although your friend is right, everything does look good on you.”

“Why, thank you, Mistah J!” Harley replies, pirouetting gracefully.

The Joker inhales sharply. He’d forgotten how fucking breathtaking she is in person. She’s in her usual t-shirt and boy shorts get-up, legs extending for miles and covered in the tattoos she drew in their time apart. Her hair is out, framing her face like it used to when she was his personal dancer.

God, he misses her.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing here?!” Deadshot asks, watching their exchange with evident confusion.

The Joker, sick of his presence, raises his gun in Lawton’s direction.

“Hold the fuck u–”

“ _Uh, uh, uh,_ Puddin,” Harley tuts, easily getting his attention. “You touch one hair on my friend’s…hairless head, and I’ll will not hesitate to bash your fucking brains in.”

She swings her bat for emphasis.

The Joker lowers his gun, impressed with Harley’s dramatics. He doesn’t doubt that she’ll come through on that threat for a single second.

Floyd keeps his revolver trained on the Joker and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Can I kill him, Harley?” he asks, annoyance lacing his voice. “ _Pretty please._ ”

She lets out a cackle, grin wide enough to mirror Mistah J’s. “No, no, Sweetheart,” Harley answers with a wink, “if anyone’s going to kill my Puddin, it’s going to be me.”

The Joker beams, unable to take his eyes of the new and improved bombshell in front of him. She stares right back. This merciless version of Harley gets his blood hot.

Deadshot looks between the two of them, shaking his head at the antics of psychopaths. “Well, I’m just gonna go, then,” he tells them, “Harley you’re good here, right?”

“Yeah, Baby.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow, then,” Floyd says as he pushes past the Joker, bumping his shoulder with a self-satisfied sneer. “Good luck, Princess.”

Harley smiles after him with such affection that the Joker has to fight the urge to turn around and shoot Deadshot, after all.

He resists, though, because they’re alone at last.

“So, Harley-pie,” he begins, circling the bench and sitting on its front edge. “Why did you bring me here?”

She blinks a few times, exaggeratedly furrowing her brow. “I didn’t bring you here.”

“Now, now, Sweetheart,” the Joker admonishes. “You know I don’t like it when you play coy, just like you know exactly what reaction that little display would get.”

Harley smirks, happy to be caught in a lie. “Maybe I missed my Puddin a little,” she admits bashfully, looking up at him through her lashes.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she breathes, slowly sauntering up to him. “Did you miss me, Mistah J?”

_Yes,_ he wants to answer, _god, yes_.

He can’t say it out loud, though. He can’t admit how much Harley’s absence affects him.

“Maybe,” the Joker sing-songs, leaning back on his hands enough to expose his bare torso. He’d forgotten to button up his shirt when he hastily exited headquarters. “I might tell you if you come a little closer.”

Harley runs her tongue along her top teeth and continues her painstakingly measured walk. Ever the picture of a femme fatale.

There still staring at each other as unforgiving arousal shoots through her stomach, weakening her already shaky legs. She hides it, though, when she reaches him, placing her hands on either side of his narrow hips and stepping in between his open legs. The Joker’s answering hum strengthens the predatory grin on Harley’s face.

“So, Pud,” she begins, closing her eyes against the sensation of him nosing a path along her jaw. “Did you really miss me?”

The Joker huffs an almost inaudible laugh. “What if I say no?” he whispers, breath hot on her neck.

Harley leans her weight on her hands as her knees weaken again, swallowing to sooth her dry throat.  Wanting to regain some power, she opens her eyes and sees the corded muscles in his throat. She bites down eagerly.

Unadulterated lust slices through the Joker and he bolts upright, finger spasming at her hips. He yanks her impossibly further into the space between his thighs.

Harley smiles triumphantly, soothing the angry red mark on his neck with her tongue. “I’d say you were lying,” she answers, voice like honey.

The Joker grins at that, silver caps glinting in the dim shop lights. He distracts her by ghosting his blood red lips over hers and pulling the hair at the nape of her neck, not wanting her to know how right she is.

Harley’s mouth hangs ajar, pulse quickening as his breath fans out over the thin skin of her lips and his sharp tug angles her chin upwards.

“Hurry it up, Puddin,” she urges, twisting her hips impatiently.

Harley’s had enough of the teasing. They’ve been apart too long for him to take his time, she needs it hard and fast.

The Joker has them across the floor in seconds, laying her down amongst the discarded jewels and shattered glass. Harley can feel the fragments of quartz slice her skin but pays it no mind. It pales in comparison to the sensation of him settling his weight over her.

“You don’t want Daddy to go slow?” the Joker asks, smirk hidden as he mouths a rough path from the underside of her jaw to the hollow of her neck. He’s achingly hard, ready to combust after this long without Harley willing and wanting beneath him.

“Not even slightly,” she answers, voice breathier than she would like.

Harley circles her bare legs around his clothed hips, chasing that evasive friction against her centre. Her hands yank the burgundy shirt off his broad shoulders. Once it’d discarded on floor next to her, she wrenches him down towards her by the back of his neck and kisses him properly for the first in months.

It’s a filthy clash of tongues seeking to bruise and dominate and Harley draws blood when she bites down on his lower lip with her incisors. She delights in the Joker’s attempt to muffle his groan.

After that, it’s a flurry of movement until Harley’s shirt is wedged under her armpits, breasts spilling out of her satin bra, and the Joker’s trousers are down by his ankles. The only barrier between them, now, is their underwear.

He’s tempted to rip off her sequined boy shorts but she would probably just storm off in a huff. The Joker is too desperate to be left high and dry right now.  

Harley pushes him off her for a moment, sliding her panties up and over her hips. When she urges him back to his former position, he’s a little unsteady above her. The Joker’s upper arms shake uncharacteristically, muscles straining as white-hot arousal pumps through his system.

Harley pushes those familiar purple briefs down his legs with her toes, happily showing off her flexibility, and kisses his bruised lips eagerly. There’s nothing between them, now. She can feel how hot his length is, sliding against her maddeningly.

The Joker stills for a moment, unused to the heady pleasure shooting through his veins. It’s been too long to fuck around with foreplay.

“Come on, Puddin,” Harley orders, frustrated at the sudden stillness. She doesn’t need him to work her up to anything, at this point, she’s been soaked since he made his entrance.

The Joker smiles at her, it’s a twisted, knowing smile that reeks of torture yet to come. He brings his hand between them as he lowers his mouth to her neck, guiding his dick in inch by inch.

“So, you want me to take my time, Harley-baby?” he asks playfully.

“Shut –” she pauses to swallow a moan, “just shut up, Pud, I know you want this as bad as I do.”

The Joker shudders at her admission, sighing against the column of her throat. He pushes the last few inches in, bottoming out when he fills her to the hilt. Harley’s wet, tight heat is all he can focus on.

If he’d known it was going to feel like this he would’ve swallowed his pride much sooner.

The Joker stills, wanting to savour this for a moment longer but Harley’s impatient beneath him, squirming in an attempt to get him to move.

“I’m not going to beg,” she states.

He lifts his head to look at her face, _never_ hearing her say anything like that before. She’s serious, though. The Joker feels something akin to a lightning bolt strike at his lower abdomen and snaps his hips, delighting in the way her mouth falls open.

Harley slaps a hand over her lips as he repeats the movement, muffling the plethora of sounds she can’t stop from bubbling in her throat. The Joker’s ice-blue eyes are burning into hers as he steadily fucks her.

She thinks that if the police, or even Batman, burst in right now, she wouldn’t be able to look away.

It doesn’t last long. The Joker drives into her hard and deep, knees tearing on the glass littered floor. Harley snakes a hand in between their bodies, thumbing her clit as pleasure crests and crests until it shatters. She comes with a silent cry, finally breaking the eye-contact as her back arches.

The Joker’s rhythm stutters as he nears his orgasm and Harley helps him reach it, meeting each desperate thrust with a roll of her hips. She watches his face with something close to awe. His eyes fall shut and lips pull back, exposing his gritted teeth.

He groans as he finishes, last few thrusts powerful. The sound of it makes Harley want round two.

They separate, lying beside each other with harsh pants. The Joker can already feel the sting in his destroyed knees but can’t bring himself to care.

Harley suddenly stands, fixing her top and pulling her shorts back over her long legs.

“Where are you going?” The Joker asks as he sits up. He’s too satiated to move too much just yet.

Harley furrows her brow as she tries to locate her bat. “Home,” she tells him, saying it like it should be obvious.

The Joker scowls in confusion, standing up to fasten his pants around his hips. “Home?” he repeats dumbly, brain still subject to a post-sex haze.

Harley pauses her search and turns to face him. “This doesn’t change anything, Puddin,” she states. “You don’t love me, you never did. A good fuck doesn’t change that.”

It takes her a moment to find her bat and bags of stolen goods then she’s just gone. The Joker is left standing there like a dumb-struck idiot, police sirens sounding in the distance.

 

* * *

 

The sad thing is the Joker thinks he does love her.

Or he’s obsessed with her. Or he's in lust with her. Or it’s a sick amalgamation of the three.

Whatever it is, he feels it so strongly it consumes his every waking thought. At least it has since she walked away.

The Joker had been foolish enough to think that great sex would bring Harley back to him, he thought it would help her see how fucking perfect they are together. He had hope, stored in the very back of his brain, that he still had her under his control.

The joke is on him, though, for _ever_ thinking he wasn’t caught in her spell.

 

* * *

 

They kind of gravitate towards one another after that, meeting at various crime scenes.

Something Harley gets his attention, sometimes the Joker gets hers. They either fight or fuck. There’s no in-between, no small talk.

_This doesn’t change anything, Puddin_ , Harley will say afterwards. Every time, without fail.

She says it so many times, with so much conviction, that the Joker begins to believe it. He gives up trying to win back her heart, it’s becomes enough to just see her.

 

* * *

 

A job goes wrong for Harley.

The Joker sees it on the cameras. The cops show up too early and she’s stuck in a bank vault as they spray the titanium door with bullets. He can see her crouched in terror, covering her ears behind the stacks and something in him just _snaps_.

He and his men are on their way within minutes.  

It becomes a gunfight as soon as the Joker arrives. Police and henchmen dropping like flies around him. He gets to the vault and sets to work on the charges while Frost and Rocco cover him. The sound of gunfire is like sweet, sweet music to his ears as he fastens the bombs around the eccentric locking mechanism.

The Joker doesn’t bother pushing down the laugh that bubbles up through his chest. Complete chaos has always been the funniest thing in the world to him.

The three of them duck for cover as he detonates the explosives. With a thunderous _boom!_ and a decent amount of debris, the vault lock is obliterated.

The Joker makes his way inside without hesitation, swinging through the metre wide hole with ease.

Harley is still ducking behind the furthermost stack, eyes closed and unaware of the absolute mayhem surrounding her. When the Joker squats in front of her and gently tilts her face up towards his, she looks up at him with more terror than he’s ever seen on her pretty face.

She relaxes once she sees him, though, expression reverent.

“Puddin!” she cries, eyes sparkling. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t think I’d let my Harley get dragged back to prison, did you?” the Joker asks, unable to stop himself from stroking her soft blonde hair. “Besides, you wouldn’t look so lovely riddled with bullet holes.”

Harley blinks at him, mouth down-turned at the edges. For a moment he thinks she’s going to lean forward and kiss him, but she seems to have moment of clarity. She schools her features into a mask of indifference.

“I don’t need you to rescue me, Mistah J,” she says, disappointment evident in her voice.

Before she left all those nights ago, the Joker would’ve laughed at her expense, kicked her while she was down. _Now_ , it twists something deep in his stomach to see her this vulnerable.

“It’s not a surrender if you didn’t ask for it,” he tells her. He looks to the side of her face, beyond uncomfortable with the sincerity in his own voice.    
Harley doesn’t think she’s ever heard him say something so calming. It brings up an unfamiliar feeling that sits in her throat and quickens her pulse. The Joker is still averting his eyes, twirling one of the tufts of hair hanging in front of her face around his finger.

Harley stares at him for moment, watching him twitch with discomfort before shaking herself out of her reverie. “Let’s go, then,” she says firmly.

The Joker nods and offers a hand to help her up. She ignores it and walks ahead of him, jester suit reflecting the fluorescent lights. He watches her gracefully dive through the hole in the door with mixed emotions.

If Harley was predictable his life would be easier. _Unbearably boring?_ Yes, but so much easier.

The ceaseless gunfire rings in his ears as he gets out of the vault. Frost and Rocco are ducking behind an overturned reception desk and Harley skips over to them. The Joker follows, peeking over the top of the table in an attempt to formulate an escape plan.

“Boss,” Frost calls as he reloads his gun. The Joker turns to him expectantly. “The Bat is here.”

“ _Batsy!_ ” Harley exclaims with glee.

“Fantastic!” The Joker agrees. He’s itching for a fight.

He can see the heavy black cloak appear every so often in the smoky scene in front of him, incapacitating his men. The Joker rolls his neck once, twice and he’s up, marching into the crossfire.

The bullets seem to stop as soon as he appears and he can hear a thunderous ringing in the sudden quiet. The Joker and the Batman face off in the centre of the rubble.

“Hiya, Batsy!” he shouts, slinging his assault rifle over his shoulder the same way Harley holds her bat. “Been a while.”

The Bat is silent. He stands still like some sort of angel of retribution, shrouded in his usual cloud of black.

“What, nothing to say?” the Joker asks. He laughs, making sure to display all of his silver teeth.

“I’m not here for you,” Batman replies gruffly. “Just let me take her. This doesn’t have to be hard.”

The Joker frowns and twists his neck, turning to face his Harley. The look she’s giving him is unreadable.

“Yeah, no fucking way, Big Guy,” the Joker replies, swiveling back around to face the Prince of Darkness. He lets the gun slip from his shoulders and points it forward.

The Bat sighs, hand reaching towards his belt. “Guess it’s going to be hard, then.”

The Joker can hear Harley stand, heels clicking on the marble floor until she’s by his side. Right where she belongs.

The three of them stare at each other in the silence, waiting for someone to make the first move.

“Harley,” Batman implores, “just come quietly and no one will get hurt.”

“ _Oh,_ _Please_ ,” she says, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly and stepping towards him. “Just because I ain’t with Mistah J anymore, don’t mean –”

A single gunshot sounds.

Harley stumbles back, mouth open in a silent scream. The red the Joker sees is the same shade as the blood pouring out of her stomach.

It takes him one second to find the perpetrator, a petrified, young-looking cop, and there’s a bullet in his brain a second after that. He shoots the Big Bat too, for good measure. The suit blocks the worst of the impact but he still ends up on the floor, clutching his chest.

The Joker turns back as the gunfire starts up again, finding Harley on the floor. She’s struggling to keep her eyes open as her head lolls back unnaturally.

“Harley-girl!” he calls, gripping her chin with white knuckles. “Come on, Sweet-thing, keep those pretty eyes open!”

She tries to look at him but is unable to focus, pupils dangerously dilated. Her mouth opens, as though she wants to say something but no sound comes out. He presses his hands hard on her stomach in an attempt to staunch the steady flow of blood.

Harley angles her head back, staring at the debilitated Batman before returning her gaze to the Joker. He covers her face with red, shouting at his men with a crazed panic.

Her eyes flutter closed.

 

* * *

 

When Harley wakes, the first thing she feels is pain.

Her vision swims, not helped by the dark environment. She can feel steady movement, as well, and realises she’s in a car. There’s noise above her, the reverberations hint that’s it’s somebody speaking.

Harley’s eyes begin to adjust and she can see her Puddin looming over her, running his hands through his hair repeatedly. She must be in his lap.

He’s talking to himself, punctuating the end of each sentence with an angry grunt. She attempts to say something but it dies in her parched throat.

Harley swallows and tries again. “Puddin,” she manages.

The Joker stills, ceasing the agitated movements and looks down at her. “Oh, Harley,” he sighs. She thinks he looks impossibly tired.

His eyes bore into hers as shadows fall over his face, making him look unnaturally handsome. More so than usual.

Harley tries to smile but it comes out as a grimace. The feeling is starting to come back to the rest of her body, it reaches her hands first as they're pushing on her stomach. It seems amplified, like the pain is spreading through her, tenfold, with every breath.

She grits her teeth, though, and lifts her hand to the Joker’s cheek.

“You let Batsy go,” she croaks.

His expression shifts, morphing into something she’s never seen before. It looks like love.

“You know I’d do anything for you, Harley-pie,” the Joker tells her, voice unbearably soft.

His cheek is painted red when her hand falls, arm shaking too much to support it. They stare at each other in the dim light as shadows of the outside world pass over their faces.

“This doesn’t change anything, Puddin,” Harley lies.  

The Joker just smiles, blood dripping onto her aching heart.


End file.
